‘Defendant tried to bribe husband of victim’ claim

PROSECUTORS claim Faisal Master tried to stop one of the police officers from attending court and attempted to bribe the husband of one of the alleged victims.

Richard Haworth, prosecuting, told the jury that Mr Master ‘attempted to avoid the consequences for what he knew he had done’.

The court was told that Mr Master attended the home of one of the alleged victims and was challenged by her husband.

Mr Haworth said the defendant then allegedly started to apologise and asked if there was ‘anything he could do to make it go away’.

The jury was told that Mr Master is accused of offering to pay the man and telling him that it was a ‘mistake that got out of hand’.

The prosecutor said Mr Master is also accused of setting up a fake social media account and messaging the police officer involved in the second alleged incident to drop the charges.

The jury was told that the officer received a message on social media.

In the message the person states that Mr Master had lost weight, his mother was ‘hugely affected due to stress and worry’ and that they had spent £12,000 on legal fees, it was claimed.

The message also stated that Mr Master has now been ‘fully rectified’ and that new measures have been taken in his workplace to ensure that no man can be alone with a woman and that CCTV cameras had been installed, the jury heard.

The hearing was told the message said: “You can agree these are drastic changes and he has definitely learned a huge amount through all this. It’s affected his last two and a half years of his and his full extended family’s life. Please taking all of this into consideration, can I ask you to find mercy in your kind heart for his family as they carry this burdensome weight on their shoulders for a very long time and it’s surely taken its toll on them.

“All of these things have been a massive wake up call for him and it has impacted his whole family.” Mr Haworth said the officer was ‘shocked’ to receive the message and immediately reported it to police. The jury was told that when police seized and examined Mr Master’s phone they found in the search history that searches had been made for the two police officers and that a new social media profile had been created.

Mr Haworth said that on the day of Mr Master’s arranged police interview the website history on the phone had been cleared and the profile had been deleted.

Mr Master denies two charges of perverting the course of justice.

The trial continues